After Danny Dean broke his neck eight years ago, he was only able to use 20 percent of his right side. Physical therapists told him whatever movement he regained in the next 18 months would be the most he would ever have. The former competitive wakeboarder became resigned to his fate.

Then his wife started doing CrossFit.

Thus far, there hasn’t been a week in which Dean hasn’t seen improvement under the watchful eye of CrossFit Forever Strong owner Jason Speck.

“Pathways that hadn’t been worked are starting to redevelop and starting to work again. Muscles that hadn’t known how to contract and how to pull are now contracting and pulling,” the coach says.

The two are focusing on seeing how much function they can create on Dean’s right side.

The 32-year-old says he’s never felt better since his accident.

“I had no set goals before,” he explains. “I kind of just resigned to modern medicine and technology to maybe save me one day. The outlook now on those sorts of things is totally changed. I do want to be 100 percent healthy again.”

Comment

Related Articles

Audrey Tannant has been playing the trumpet since she was 9 years old. Now, as an adult, she drives four hours once a month to play principal trumpet in the Okanagan Symphony in British… Continue Reading

With the encouragement of co-worker and CrossFit coach Meredith Davis, 18 Cannon School educators in Concord, North Carolina, started training at CrossFit Vitality. In this nine-part series, these teachers and… Continue Reading

Danny, this is the inspiration and credibility I needed. I'm 45 and recovering from a distal biceps tendon rupture repair and am wondering what use I'll get out of my arm. I want to thank you and wish you good luck. Keep up the hard work.

Way to cool Danny. And even after your injury you can wake board better than me. I need to setup a wake board adventure some where in your honor, get some friends together and go do that sort of thing.

Your effing awesome Danny, But I am sure you hear that all the time. But just so you can hear it again bro... you are awesome!

Danny, thanks for sharing your story. It's amazing how you push yourself each day to reach the goal of just being able to function normally. Your story was a reminder to me to not allow small things in life to bring me down. I hope you can reach your goal of being 100% again....

Love this story. Persist without exception. Just goes to show how beneficial body-weight/ weight bearing exercises and functional movements are to the different structures of our bodies. Whether the program design is to be therapeutic or beast mode, Hard work is always the answer. I'm a fellow wakeboarder and trainer and I'm very impressed. Keep up the good work. i hope they do a follow up story because i would like to see where Danny is at in another year of grinding it out day in and day out. Never quit.

The CrossFit Journal is a chronicle of the empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed CrossFit program. Our mission is to provide a venue for contributing coaches, trainers, athletes, and researchers to ponder, study, debate, and define fitness and collectively advance the art and science of optimizing human performance.